Exxon Mobil has outlined plans for a project costing at least £72billion to capture carbon generated by heavy industry in Texas and bury it under the Gulf of Mexico seabed.
The US oil major said it would need support from governments as well as private investors to set up the scheme.
Exxon Mobil would use chemicals to collect carbon in the air emitted by dozens of plants along the Houston Ship Channel.
Carbon capture: Exxon Mobil would use chemicals to collect carbon in the air emitted by dozens of plants along the Houston Ship Channel (pictured)
It would pump it into pipelines that would take it to empty former oil and gas reservoirs beneath the ocean floor.
The project could capture and store away about 100m tons of carbon by 2040 – though this is a fraction of the 5.2bn tons of carbon estimated to have been emitted in 2020.
Carbon capture and storage projects are hailed by many as a way to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere as quickly as possible – though critics of the schemes say they are just a temporary solution.
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